Why isn't Microsoft trying to "LL"?

Question just popped into my head, where is Bill Gate's hand, reaching out over our avatar's heads, stealing as much personal info as possible, leaving doors open for hackers, but running a much less-laggy version of SL? I don't know if this open-source thing would entend to an entity like Microsoft...but they have a lot of manpower, and money to hire more, I wonder why ole Bill hasn't tried to take LL's idea to "run away with it"???

It's not complete enough yet. Give it time. There's no doubt that MS and Google are paying attention.

From a company that makes WINDOWS?

I wouldn't think M$ would be interested in SL,
based on what I think they wouldn't consider as an attractive userbase and content.
And as far as Google, I'd see them, if not already, developing their own virt worlds.

One thing pops into my head- OpenGL.

Microsoft would rather have it DirectX.


Meh- Microsoft, Apple.... same thing, just different ways of keeping you tied to 'em.

If it were Apple buying LL, we'd pay more, things would run stable, but they'd make you pay extra for every new feature without being able to say no to the new feature.

Microsoft is in the game at several levels. Expect it to be a while though before anything materializes from that quarter. Myself, I have some doubts whether they have the vision to pull it off, but we'll see.

I think the two biggest reasons MS and Google do not have a world like SL out there (yet) are because it is not profitable enough to them in their eyes (they are established already with other successful products) and the bad publicity LL gets.

bad publicity = gambling, money laundering, pedophelia, child pornography, hmmm, what else on the blog lately? ad farms? Honestly, if I were Microsoft I wouldn't want my business tarnished with such tabloid garbage.

If I were MS, I would sit back and watch LL make all of the mistakes, and then learn from theirs and make a semi-perfect world without any jaw dropping scandals.

Google already has Google Earth; my advice to them is to make Google Earth more like SL with a 3D environment (excluding private homes and businesses however, give people customizable avatars), or make Google World.

You mean like the internet? It's full of all those things.

Microsoft shouldn't a build a web browser that can get at all of that bad, bad content... oh wait, they did....

If Microsoft made something like this, then instead of your shoes up your butt after a teleport, you would get the Blue Sim Of Death and then wait for a KB article that fixes it on Patch Tuesdays.

They will just wait till the audience of users is established and functional,

And then come in, change the rules, and steal all the business away ...

Like Google did to Yahoo

Like Microsoft did to Netscape

Microsoft ang Google only want to handle company-to-customer relations, and only as little of that as possible. Running a virtual world involves that, and much more of that than they want, and also it involves managing customer-to-customer relations--mostly disputes, but also commerce, governance and community. MS and Google don't want to deal with that.

Neither does LL, but they have no choice. If you're looking for a big change out of LL, watch for them to tap some third party to handle the social stuff while they go off working on the technology. I think they've discovered they can't get away with tapping nobody at all for that role.

You see, the thing that makes SL different from "the web" is that users can make crap of SL. Users can't make crap of Windows, except on their own machine, and they generally can't make crap of websites, except their own, but they can make crap of a virtual world.

The internet is not governed by one company, so its reputation (as a whole) does not tarnish a company. Yes, the Second Life browser and the Internet Explorer Browser are both tools to be used in good or bad ways, but it is the established reputation I am talking about. Unfortunately, Second Life seems to only turn heads when people are looking at the bad things. Can you tell me the last time you saw MS or Google in the news for sexual scandals? Even if they were, their established reputations are probably more than enough to save their businesses. A possibility is that the reason they are waiting is to see what to allow since LL is breaking ground and learning what is acceptable.


On a side note... don't know if anyone can verify, but did anyone hear about the Microsoft associated online Santa Claus that shouted expletives as kids when they typed in certain things they wanted for x-mas? lol

I did! I "LOL"d quite alot at that!

Just goes to show ya- programmers are sneaky.

Hmm... at least then, you get a little error code that means absolutely nothing, but supposedly holds the key as to why you crashed. But gah, the spyware, adware and viruses one would get from cybering every pixel that moved...

And you'd only need 15 CDROMs to install SL.

Microsoft is paying attention, you can be sure. Right now, they are making a play for Yahoo, they understand the importance of online social networks. And Yahoo has its own, if nascent, Avatar module...

Which memory intensive program lags worse, Windows or SL? Go ahead and open 15 folders (simultaneously) in windows, then close those, and open 2 SL Clients simultaneously. Huge difference. For those who play platform videogames, you too know what I mean about the speed. That's how Microsoft's console survived it's first few years with a much smaller catalog of games than the competetion.

They would know much better than Phillip how to run SL, software, and other-wise.



I'm glad I don't have that version of Windows, the install is annoying enough with 1 or 2 disks!

I expected the whole "Anti Microsoft" thing to come up of course, since even I myself have been using windows since '95, AND I used to work as Tech Support Manager for an ISP, wrestlin' w/ Windows every day, not only for customers, but myself...however, that's off-topic.


I think you're right Mr. Ginsberg, they're just keepin' a low profile on the whole thing...Bill might be a greedy and ruthless businessman but he definitely isn't stupid!

This would be my answer as well.

In many ways Microsoft is not nearly as progressive as it might have once seemed. It's becoming more like the old Big Blue all the time.

Microsoft Windows 1.0 took up around 3.5 Megabytes on floppy and did not have a desktop trash can. lol

Second Life 1.0 was around 21 Megabytes and a Linden would come to your home and install it for you.

Depending on install Microsoft Vista is around 2500 Megabytes and a small truck delivers it and security people are assigned to your home to make sure you don't do anything with filez.

You can download the latest SL for windows and it's only 34 Megabytes. It might not work though.

As others have said, MS is probably sitting back and waiting. SL will need to change in order to become the kind of place some expect it might - where 80%+ of everyone that is on the internet also has an avatar. Its going to have to become more open and distributed, with LL not running the entire show.

Hello Everyone... Interesting thread. According to my husband, who is an avid WoW'er and previously an avid EQ'er, M$ was behind "Vanguard" which was being developed by the original creator of EQ. He said that for some reason M$ bailed out of the project well before it went into beta. So perhaps M$ just doesn't want the headaches associated with a virtual world? At least everyone can hold their breath and hope that’s true! Or perhaps Vanguards creator didn't want the same problems that came along with Sony and held his ground which caused M$ to bail?

MS is never the first on the block.

Remember how long it took them to adopt a GUI?

Remember how long it took them to provide networking support?

Remember how long it took them to provide a browser?

And they certainly weren't the first to jump into the web search site market. Gee, it's only been what, over 10 years since Yahoo went through the roof?

Note: I'm not a Mac-happy Windows bater. Macs are cool but I use Windows, for reasons I won't go into. These are just historical facts as I remember them: MS is not an innovator, it's simply a giant that waits for the winners to emerge and then buys them. And even then, not until the market is very very obviously well established.

They jump, but when they jump, they jump big, and jump hard, with a lot of weight. Sometimes that jump lands them in the market; sometimes it doesn't. (We'll see with web searching. With handhelds, I suppose they're gaining ground.)

The lack of MS's heavy hand in the SL market simply means it's not a massive enough market yet, and far too innovative and risky. Gates is an entrepenurial genius, but it doesn't mean that that MS jumps on every good idea.

When Vista came out Microsoft sponsored concerts in Second Life.
They may be involved in some way but way in the background.

... or they simply thought it was a good marketing ruse and figured a few thou to buy an island was a worthwhile investment...

You have doubts whether M$ has vision? I'd seriously suggest you research where they came from, and how far they've come.